¡Viva los Muertos!
"¡Viva los Muertos!" is the eleventh episode in the second season of The Venture Bros. This episode is written by Ben Edlund, creator of The Tick and friends with the creators of The Venture Bros. Plot The episode begins from the first-person visual perspective of one of the Monarch's henchmen as the Monarch is preparing to storm the Venture compound yet again. As the henchmen rush in amongst a swarm of butterflies, the whole ordeal collapses almost immediately as the henchman comes upon corpses with butterflies stuffed in their mouths. The henchman finally sees a blood-drenched Brock in the process of destroying his comrades; he attempts to escape, but his head is twisted completely around as Brock snaps his neck and the screen goes black. After the title sequence, the show continues on through the perspective of the henchman as he is resurrected as a Frankenstein-esque monster, reanimated by none other than Thaddeus Venture himself. As he becomes aware of what has happened, he (afterwards known as "Venturestein") attempts to strangle Dr. Venture out of horror, and is subsequently re-killed by Brock and subsequently re-ressurected. Meanwhile, outside the Venture compound, a van containing a quartet of aging hippies and large dog comes upon the Venture compound. The newcomers resemble the cast of the Scooby-Doo series, as well as celebrated criminals of the late twentieth century (see "Trivia" below). Ted, overbearing and something of a bully, decides the place must be haunted and that there is a mystery to be solved (simply on the basis that if they stopped here, there has to be a mystery to solve), and forces everyone else to investigate. Everyone else seems uninterested, as Val spouts radical-feminist vitriol such as how a man is an incomplete woman, Patty just wants to go to her parents' house, as she has for the last 10 years, and Sonny is repeatedly ordered by the dog Groovy (possessed by a demon whom only Sonny can hear) to kill everyone. Ted eventually bullies everyone into coming with him, save for Groovy and Sonny, whom he orders to go search for clues on their own. Inside the compound, the Ventures are eating in the kitchen with Venturestein, and Venturestein learns he now has an African-American cranium complete with Afro hairstyle. Dr. Venture explains his experiment: he can put corpses and dead people to good use as manual labor and keep them productive even after death. The zombie meanwhile seems perturbed by Brock's presence, who is genuinely put off by Venturestein, but the zombie begins to cheer up when the boys teasingly tell him that Brock was a 'bad man' for killing him. Dr. Orpheus arrives and informs Dr. Venture of his plans to have a get-together in his portion of the compound. Orpheus is suspicious about the resurrected corpse, and invites Brock, who he suspects is troubled, to the event which he promises will be both spiritual and therapeutic in nature. Later, Hank and Dean are distraught when they can't find African-America on a map, and mention that they can't get into their "learning beds" because Venturestein has been put in one to learn how to "socialize" (though actually he is learning how to be a child laborer, watching old training films produced in the 1960s). Upon hearing odd noises in the hallways they leave to investigate and Venturestein, upon hearing the word "prostitute" (actually the Spanish words "¡Viva los zapatos!" which sounded like prostitute) smashes out of the bed with surprising strength and crashes around the compound hoping to find one. Meanwhile, the hippies come across Dr. Orpheus and Venturestein and assume that the compound is a Dracula/Frankenstein factory. Sonny and Groovy come upon Hank and Dean and Sonny is scared out of his wits: in a flashback we see that he and Groovy had murdered the boys two years earlier in a cave. (Groovy had torn Dean's throat out and Sonny beaten Hank's head in with a flashlight; Ted had helped to toss the boys' corpses into a mine shaft.) Sonny's conclusion: Hank and Dean are "g-g-g-g-GHOSTS!!!" He and Groovy rush off to warn their friends. Brock is now clearly in a funk, and after several failed attempts at throwing knives for target practice, decides to go to Dr. Orpheus' party after all. Meanwhile, Dr. Venture is thrilled to find that the military wants to use his reanimated corpses as soldiers, figuring that a much more lucrative business deal. When confronted with the shortage of corpses around the compound, he blithely asks Brock to go kill some people. Brock refuses. After introductions of the other attendees (including the Order of the Triad and an Amazonian mystic) Dr. Orpheus gives everyone a psychotropic plant vines in order to achieve spiritual enlightenment. As everyone sits around hallucinating, vomiting, and reminiscing about episodes of bestiality, Brock admits that he feels bad about killing the henchman that became Venturestein; he had already thrown his gun down and was running away but Brock killed him anyway just for the hell of it. He then collapses to the floor and hallucinates about riding nude on the backs of pink dolphins in the middle of the ocean. The dolphins tell Brock that the path to happiness is through empathy; however the dolphins are soon harpooned by Hunter Gathers (post-op). Hunter blasts into the air with Brock, telling him (while he is hugging onto Hunter's breast) that he's working for the government and that his entire job is to hunt and kill people and basically not worry about it. Brock then awakes from his trip, and charges out of the party in a homicidal rage. Sonny in the meantime has told Ted of the resurrected Venture boys; the arrogant Ted doubts him until the boys find the hippies in a dark corridor. Ted produces a gun, intending to put those 'zombies' out for good, and the hippies pursue the terrified boys. Hank and Dean run into a dark lab room...only to find many life-support tubes holding their many yet-to-be-animated clone-slugs. In their terror they break open a tube and a lifeless a Hank-slug falls out. Both boys fall to the floor and curl up in the fetal position, whimpering. The hippies run into the clone lab and Ted prepares to shoot the brothers, just as Brock and Venturestein also come in. Brock begins to strangle Ted, then kills him with a head butt; during the struggle Ted's gun goes off and kills Sonny. Venturestien strangles Groovy. (Val and Patty--who took no part in the attempted murder of the Venture brothers--manage to escape.) Brock snaps out of his rage when he see the boys on the floor, and realizes the shock of seeing their clones has sent them into a catatonic state. Dr. Venture comes in the room, and with unusually quick thinking tells his sons the clones were supposed to be their Christmas present: a whole army of them, thinking the boys the best, doing their chores and dangerous missions, etc. The boys leave, happily and oblivious to the nature of the clones. Dr. Venture counts the new corpses, and briefly contemplates killing the boys for his death quota before Brock stops him. After the credits, Brock is seen driving Venturestein (wearing Hank's Batman mask) to buy him prostitutes' services as a way to make up for his murder. Venturestein thinks he can pay for their services with a shoe made from Groovy's severed paw, but Brock assures the monster that the hookers are on him. Trivia *The title is Spanish for "Long live the dead!" *Ben Edlund previously helped develop the stories for the previous episodes "Careers in Science", written by Doc Hammer, and "Guess Who's Coming to State Dinner?", written by Jackson Publick. This is his first solo Venture Bros. script. *One of the animation directors (Kimson Albert) gets to have a "nickname" inserted into his credits. The nickname is an unusual line or word from the preceding episode. For "¡Viva los Muertos!" the credit reads Kimson "Quiet Desperation" Albert. *Henchman #21 refers to the doomed POV Monarch henchman as "Texas." It is uncertain if this is really his name, or if #21 is using the informal army practice of referring to a new recruit by nicknaming him after his place of origin (often because they don't remember the name). #24 tells #21 not to bother talking with the new guys ala Flight of the Intruder saying that new guys never last. *21's insistence that the Monarch henchmen "stay frosty" before going into battle might be a reference to the film Aliens (as #21 is a sci-fi geek). *The resurrection scene is an homage to the movie Robocop. *The name "Venturestein" and the concept of the reanimation of the dead is an allusion to Frankenstein's monster. *We do not see the actual means by which Doctor Venture brought Venturestein back from the dead. In the novel, Frankenstein also refuses to specify the details (so nobody else would try). *The scene in which Brock shows up to Dr. Orpheus's party drenched by rain alludes to a similar scene in American Beauty. *The group of vagrants who show up at the Venture compound parody the characters of Scooby-Doo and famous killers or radicals: **Ted (Fred): resembled Ted Bundy, with Charles Manson and David Koresh's charisma and manipulative abilities. **Val (Velma): Valerie Solanas **Patty (Daphne): Patty Hearst **Sonny (Shaggy): David Berkowitz (The "Son of Sam") **Groovy (Scooby): Harvey, the dog from the "Son of Sam" case. *The influx of these personalities puts a dark twist on the Scooby continuum: Ted is shown as a quasi-charismatic and abusive leader; Val is a man-hating lesbian; Patty is a weak-willed abuse victim; Sonny is a drug-addled hippie; and Groovy is possessed by a demon (or is the object of Sonny's delusions). *Incidentally, the Scooby-Doo franchise was created by Hanna-Barbera (the predecessor to Cartoon Network Studios, which airs The Venture Bros.). This connection allowed them the use of the zany sound effects found in the Scooby-Doo series, just as it allowed them the use of characters from Johnny Quest in previous episodes. Theoretically, the creators of the Venture Bros. could have used the exact likenesses of the original Scooby-Doo cast. **Perhaps one reason the creators did not use the original characters is the fact that Scooby-Doo has been referenced in previous episodes. (Triana has said Hank dresses "like Fred from Scooby-Doo.") *Another death sequence of Hank and Dean is revealed in this episode. Two years before the events fo this episode, they were murdered by Sonny and Groovy in a cavern somewhere in Baja California. *The Alchemist and Jefferson Twilight are at Dr. Orpheus's party. *The "Death Vine" drink that was served at Dr. Orpheus's party is likely based on ayahuasca. *Ted (based on Fred) calls Dr. Orpheus a Dracula. In "Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!", Hank (based on Fred) refers to Orpheus as a Dracula as well. *Items on Doctor Venture's to-do list: **Beat God at his own game **Get money **Increase my word power **Pushups! **Make everything ... my way *Dr. Orpheus complains about repeatedly receiving Hector's junk mail. Until "Powerless in the Face of Death", Hector was living in the compound's manufacturing wing. *This episode shows that, at present, Doctor Venture has at least four cloned bodies in waiting for each of the boys. *When experiencing his vivid drug trip, and subsequently meeting Colonel Hunter Gathers (who is now a woman), Brock is told by Hunter "you're Beyond Good and Evil, Superman", making reference to the concept of the ubermensch or Superman, a concept of a strong-willed individual, who seizes his or her own destiny, and doesn't adhere to the herd mentality-morality, of the Masses; created by German Philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. This is implying, that because of his training and his personality and such, Brock can be seen as Superman of sorts. Viva los Muertos!